Up the Down Staircase

By Bel Kaufman

Sept. 25

Dear Ellen,

It's FTG (Friday Thank God), which means I need not set the alarm
for 6:30 tomorrow morning; I can wash a blouse, think a thought, write a letter.

Congratulations on the baby's new tooth. Soon there is bound to be another tooth and another and another, and before you know it, little Suzie will start going to school, and her troubles will just begin.

Though I hope that by the time she gets into the public high school system, things will be different. At least, they keep promising that things will be different. I'm told that since the recent strike threats, negotiations with the United Federation of Teachers, and greater public interest, we are enjoying "improved conditions". But in the two weeks that I have been here, conditions seem greatly unimproved.

You ask what I am teaching. Hard to say. Professor Winters advised teaching "not the subject but the whole child". The English Syllabus urges "individualization and enrichment" – which means giving individual attention to each student to bring out the best in him and enlarge his scope beyond the prescribed work. Bester says "to motivate and distribute" books – that is, to get students ready and eager to read. All this is easier said than done. In fact, all this is plain impossible.

Many of our kids – though physically mature – can't read beyond 4th and 5th grade level. Their background consists of the simplest comics and thrillers. They've been exposed to some ten years of schooling, yet they don't know what a sentence is.

The books we are required to teach frequently have nothing to do with anything except the fact that they have always been taught, or that there is an oversupply of them, or that some committee or other was asked to come up with some titles.

I've been trying to teach without books. There was one heady moment when I was able to excite the class by an idea: I had put on the blackboard Browning's "Aman's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?» and we got involved in a spirited discussion of aspiration vs. reality. 'Is it wise,' I asked, to aim higher than one's capacity? Does it not doom one to failure? No, no, some said, that's ambition and progress! No, no, others cried, that's frustration and defeat! What about hope? What about despair? – You've got to be practical! – You've got to have a dream! They said this in their own words, you understand, startled into discovery. To the young, cliches seem freshly minted. Hitch your wagon to a star! And when the dismissal bell rang, they paid me the highest compliment: they groaned! They crowded in the doorway, chirping like agitated sparrows, pecking at the seeds I had strewn – when who should materialize but Admiral Ass.

"What is the meaning of this noise?"

"It's the sound of thinking, Mr. McHabe," I said.

The cardinal sin, strange as it may seem in an institution of learning, is talking. There are others, of course – sins, I mean, and I seem to have committed a good number. Yesterday I was playing my record of Gielgud reading Shakespeare. I had brought my own phonograph to school (no one could find the Requisition Forms for "Audio-Visual Aids" – that's the name for the school record player) and I had succeeded, I thought, in establishing a mood. I mean, I got them to be quiet, when – enter Admiral Ass, in full regalia, epaulettes quivering with indignation. He snapped his fingers for me to stop the phonograph, waited for the turntable to stop turning, and pronounced:

"There will be a series of three bells rung three times indicating Emergency Shelter Drill. Playing records does not encourage the orderly evacuation of the class."

I mention McHabe because he has crystallized into The Enemy...

Chaos, waste, cries for help – strident, yet unheard. Or am I romanticizing? That's what Paul says; he only shrugs and makes up funny verses about everyone. That's Paul Barringer – a writer who teaches English on one foot, as it were, just waiting to be published. He's very attractive: a tan crew cut, a white smile with lots of teeth; one eyebrow higher than the other. All the girls are in love with him.

There are a few good, hard-working, patient people... who manage to teach against insuperable odds; a few brilliantly endowed teachers who – unknown and unsung – work their magic in the classroom; a few who truly love young people. The rest, it seems to me, have either given up, or are taking it out on the kids. "Those who can, do, those who can't, teach." Like most sayings, this is only half true. Those who can, teach; those who can't – the bitter, the misguided, the failures from other fields – find in the school system an excuse or a refuge....

And Dr. Bester, my immediate supervisor, Chairman of the English Department, I can't figure out at all. He is a dour, desiccated little man, remote and prissy. Like most chairmen, he teaches only one class of Seniors; the most experienced teachers are frequently promoted right out of the classroom! Kids respect him; teachers dislike him – possibly because he is given to popping up, unexpectedly, to observe them. "The ghost walks" is the grape-vine signal for his visits. Bea told me he started out as a great teacher, but he's been soured by the trivia-in-triplicate which his administrative duties impose. I hope he doesn't come to observe me until I get my bearings.

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